Mark Steyn: Gingrich’s ideas ‘sound all as if they are coming from a self-help manual’

The presidential resurgent campaign of former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has brought naysayers out of the woodwork, many of them from the conservative end of the political spectrum. Ann Coulter has vociferously opposed Gingrich’s candidacy. So have radio host Mark Levin and Washington Post columnist George Will. Now add another to that list: National Review columnist Mark Steyn.

Filling in for Rush Limbaugh on his radio show Tuesday, Steyn referenced a Pundit & Pundette blog post that suggested Gingrich sounds smarter on the debate stage because he uses so many adverbs.

“You watch him in the debates,” Steyn said. “It’s all ‘profoundly, dramatically deeply compelling. All the action is in the adverbs. One of my problems again with Newt is like he’s bursting with ideas that sound all as if they are coming from a self-help manual. If you remember back in his heyday, he had something called ‘The Triangle of American Progress.’ And that evolved into the “Four Pillars of American Civilization,’ which in turn expanded into the ‘Five Pillars of the Twenty-First Century.’”

And the growth of those programs, from three-to-four-to-five points, doesn’t lend a lot of credence to any hopes Gingrich would scale back government.

“And by the way, just the sort of grade inflation going on in his plans,” Steyn added, “makes him sound as a wee bit of a dodgy prospect when comes to actually slashing back government.”